The Committee for Mounir is pleased to announce today the launching of an international campaign on behalf of Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan student who has been sentenced by a Hamburg court in 2007 to 15 years in prison. He is the only person world-wide currently imprisoned for allegedly assisting others in the preparation of the mass murder of September 11, 2001.

The Committee notes that El Motassadeq was convicted and sentenced on the base of extremely flimsy evidence, demands the reopening of his case, and is convinced that an impartial court would determine his innocence and that of his friends, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, with regard to the events of September 11, 2001.

The Committee has established a webpage - www.justiceformounir.org - which contains the Committee's official APPEAL in various languages and background documentation on his judicial case.

Facts of the case

Mounir El Motassadeq is a Moroccan citizen born in 1974. He studied electrical engineering in Hamburg, Germany, where he befriended Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah, three of the four persons alleged to have piloted hijacked aircraft on September 11, 2001, in a murderous suicide operation.

Mounir's alleged crime was to take care of various personal commissions for his friends and transfer the equivalent of $2,500, to Ramzi Binalshibh, who is said to have transferred this money to Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah, with the alleged intent to help them prepare the attacks of 9/11. These acts led to his condemnation as an accomplice (German: Beihilfe) in mass murder.

The Hanseatic Hamburg court sentenced Mounir to 15 years in prison on the base of the alleged guilt of his friends, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, in mass murder, by relying principally upon an oral presentation of an FBI official, Matthew Walsh. This official did not testify under oath, refused to answer most questions, and did not provide authenticated documentation to substantiate his statements. He neither witnessed the actual commission of the crime nor interviewed eyewitnesses to the crime. The court was not either provided with evidence proving that Mounir’s friends actually boarded the aircraft with which they allegedly committed their suicide operation. In sum, the court simply assumed that the official tale on the events of 9/11 was true and that the guilt of the Principals had been established somewhere.

It has meanwhile been thoroughly documented[1] that the US authorities have not produced to date any evidence that Muslim/Arab terrorists had actually boarded the aircraft they allegedly used as weapons of mass destruction. In addition to the lack of hard evidence of their presence in the aircraft, serious questions remain regarding the identity of the crashed aircraft because the FBI has declined to formally identify the wreckage.

The Hamburg court alleged in its judgment that Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah were chosen by Osama bin Laden to act as pilots in the 9/11 attacks. But the US Department of Justice has never charged Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks, and the FBI, when asked why not, replied that the “FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”[2][3]

Even the FBI, according to its webpage dedicated to the PENTTBOM investigation[4], acknowledges that it is not certain of the true identities of the 9/11 hijackers.

Demand for justice

Justice means that only those found guilty of a criminal offense may be punished. Such guilt must be established beyond reasonable doubt by an independent judiciary in a fair trial. In the light of the absence of hard evidence that Mounir's friends – Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah – actually planned and committed mass murder, Mounir El Motassadeq must be considered as having been wrongly punished.

Relatives of victims from the mass murder of 9/11, as well as society as a whole, are entitled to obtain justice. Justice means that real offenders, not scapegoats, be punished. None of those who actually planned and facilitated the mass murder of 9/11 have yet been punished.

Accordingly, we urge the German judicial authorities to facilitate the reopening of the case against Mounir El Motassadeq. We believe that a retrial of Mounir El Motassadeq will lead to his release from prison, help uphold trust in the German judicial system and prompt judicial authorities around the world to press for the identification and trial of those who planned and facilitated the mass murder of 9/11.